Buzz
“Can I treat you to coffee and get your insights?” What led to the widespread belief among those seeking advice that a one-hour professional consultation is equivalent in value to a three-dollar drink? Why do many of us attempt this early in our careers (and sometimes even later, especially in business development)?
In our early twenties, many of us fail to recognize how ordinary we appear to those we admire or how much busier they are than we realize. What we perceive as the start of a promising friendship, they often view as another task to manage—or preferably, avoid.
If you catch yourself asking to pick someone’s brain (a poor choice of words), first determine whether you genuinely seek their advice or simply their approval. If it’s the latter, consider confiding in friends or showcasing your achievements publicly.
If you truly need advice, ask directly in your email. And make sure to adhere to these guidelines:
Dedicate 95% of your effort to researching the recipient and only 5% to drafting the email.
Provide a brief yet detailed introduction and pose precise questions.
Limit yourself to one or two questions—never three. The urge to add a third will arise because the email seems too brief, but resist it.
Conduct a quick Google search on your questions beforehand.
Avoid suggesting a phone call as a middle ground. It’s not a compromise; it’s an imposition.
Include the phrase, “Even a single sentence would be immensely helpful.”
As novelist Tao Lin suggested, give the recipient permission to disregard your email entirely—not just decline, but ignore it completely.
Express gratitude.
Before hitting send, review your email and remove at least one sentence.
Send the email and move forward. Never follow up.
The goal is to make responding feel less like a chore and more like a distraction. If your initial email invites me for coffee, I’ll either pretend to be out of the office or deceased. But if you ask a single question and add, “Feel free to ignore,” I’ll likely abandon my work and craft a lengthy reply via Gmail.
Send the email and let it go. Be pleasantly surprised if you receive a response. Then adhere to these guidelines:
Express gratitude once more.
If the response is thorough and thoughtful, you may ask a follow-up question, keeping the same conditions in mind.
Only suggest an in-person meeting after they’ve written at least five paragraphs or used five exclamation marks.
Never agree to another phone call.
Every request for advice inherently values the recipient’s expertise over your own, at least temporarily. To get the answers you seek, act as though this is true.
